National Marine Life Center

CONTACT:

120 Main Street P.O. Box 269
Buzzards Bay, MA 02532-0269
(508) 743-9888
www.nmlc.org

Kathryn Zagzebski, President & Executive Director

DESCRIPTION:

More whales, dolphins, seals and sea turtles become stranded on and near Cape Cod than anywhere else in North America; each year about 150 marine mammals, and as many as 300 sea turtles. As federally protected species under the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 and the Oceans Act of 1992, their rehabilitation, as well as our understanding of these incidents and of the phenomenon in general, is by law a priority for science, conservation, and public education.

Nationwide as well as in New England, there is now an active and visible National Stranding Network of beach rescue programs that bring trained and authorized personnel to beaches, especially during mass strandings. But whereas beach response is generally very good, rehabilitation capacity is limited — the excellent New England Aquarium program has only one cetacean rehabilitation pool, which can hold one adult or at best a mother/calf pair.

The National Marine Life Center was founded in 1995 to rehabilitate and release stranded marine animals, to learn the causes of strandings —e.g., animal health and ocean conditions — for improved protection of threatened and endangered species, and to improve public understanding of the marine environment. To these ends, the NMLC is building a unique state-of-the-art, 19,900-sq.-ft. "rehabilitarium" (hospital, rehabilitation pools and educational facilities), to be located on Main Street in Bourne, on a site donated by the Mobil Oil Corporation.

In the meantime, it is working out of an interim facility and is providing rehab for a loggerhead. But the Center needs venture donor investors to help build its innovative scientific, veterinary-medical, and marine-science educational facility and program. Won't you help?

(2001: NATURE: Biodiversity)